Colin Firth, A Coffee Table, And Some Wine
by HoneydukesFan
Summary: A one-shot with Clary and Jace. Jace broke up with Clary two months ago, and now he wants to get back together. It just didn't turn out the way he planned it.  Written from Clary's POV.


_A/N: This was a completely random fanfiction, which you will probably only get if you've watched the five hour BBC version of __Pride and Prejudice__. The characters are only loosely based on the characters from Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments Series. This short fanfiction was also (very) slightly inspired by the song "For The First Time" by The Script. I do not own any of Cassandra Clare's characters._

Someone knocked on my apartment door. I almost missed it, what with the TV blaring. Not that it wasn't a firm knock—it was, but my apartment door was made out of cheap plywood that I was pretty sure was hollow. Said door was covered in peeling green paint and was generally a crap door, much like the rest of the apartment.

A crap door can make any knock sound like a crap knock.

I rose out of my comfy, orange velvet sofa. It was practically ancient, that sofa. I had gotten it from a garage sale about ten years ago, for no particular reason. Last year my parents had gotten me a set of leather couches to replace the 'miserable furball masquerading as a piece of furniture', but I had decided to keep it anyways. The sofa sat rather lonely-looking in the center of the room, surrounded by the shiny, imposing leather couches.

Shuffling in my bedroom slippers, I dodged the spiky, geometric coffee table that my friend Gustav assured me was modern art, and pulled open the door.

Silence.

"Jace."

"Clary."

I leaned against the doorframe and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, "Can I help you with something?"

Jace was my ex-boyfriend, who dumped me two months ago. Most people would have probably shut the door _en_ _rapido_ if their ex showed up at 11:45 pm with a bottle of 2 buck chuck and what looked suspiciously like the five-hour version of _Pride and Prejudice_, the movie, but I didn't. The small, dangerous coffee table two feet behind me was perfectly capable of impaling somebody, whether on accident or on purpose. Actually, it was the main reason I kept it, no offense to Gustav.

However, I didn't think that Jace was that kind of guy anyways. Sure, he could be an ass hole sometimes, but he wasn't that terrible.

Looking at Jace closely, I could see that he had dark grey bags under his eyes. His blonde hair was tousled, and was in need of a trim. Not that I was complaining; I had always had a bit of a thing for guys with longer hair.

"Do you want to talk?" Jace finally asked.

Not "Hello," or "How are you?" or "What's up?" Just, "Do you want to talk?"

So, still pretty much the same Jace, I guess.

I considered my options. There were obvious reasons to say 'no': 1) He was my ex, 2) It was kind of late, and 3) It was sketchy, especially with the bottle of cheap wine and century-old chick-flick.

Then there was 'yes': 1) I didn't have anything else to do, except watch re-runs of "Friends" that I've already seen, 2) I still sorta liked Jace, and 3) Collin Firth was looking beseechingly at me from the cover of _Pride and Prejudice_.

In the end, Collin Firth won out, and I held open the door with a 'Sure'. He brushed past me, and right as he crossed the threshold, I remembered to warn him. "Oh, and watch out for that coffee table, it's—"

I was cut off by an _oompf_ and copious amounts of swearing as the vicious coffee table attacked Jace in the lower regions.

"Ah… Sorry about that. My friend Gustav assured me that I was making the world 'a more contemporary place one piece of art at a time' when I got that."

Jace scowled at muttered something about where Gustav could stick his contemporary art.

Jace straightened up, and looked about the apartment. I watched his eyes roaming the cramped living room. It couldn't have looked that different: the only things that had changed were the coffee table and (perhaps) the addition of more sketches to the wall.

My walls were originally covered with an unattractive coat of yellow paint, and were now covered with paintings, sketches, notes, bumper stickers, and posters. Since my ferocious landlord had forbidden re-painting my apartment, I had rebelled in my own way and covered the walls with layers and layers of paper instead. The wall we were facing in the living room consisted of a copy of Monet's water lilies from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (a print), an oil painting my mom had painted of Luke's farmhouse, a poster of Orlando Bloom playing Legolas in the third _Lord of the Rings_ movie, old grocery lists, a speeding ticket, and hundreds of sketches taped wherever there was space on the wall. The pieces of paper fluttered slightly whenever there was a breeze in the room, like fingers waving from a window.

I saw Jace smile slightly. It looked like he was looking at…. Well, home.

"So," I said, and settled myself down on the couch. "What do you want to talk about?"

However, Jace didn't answer. Instead, he walked into the florescent-lighted kitchen adjacent to the living room and rummaged about for a few minutes. When he came back, he was holding two chipped coffee mugs.

He gave me the mug with Superman on it, and kept the Library of Congress mug for himself. Popping off the top of the bottle of wine efficiently, he poured a generous amount of wine into my mug and then poured himself some.

Jace glanced at Superman on my cup. "So, is Simon's geekiness spreading again?" He gestured towards Orlando Bloom and then at the coffee cup.

"Yeah. You haven't even seen my Darth Vader shirt yet."

More silence. It wasn't really an awkward silence, just kind of a tired silence.

I sipped tentatively at my wine, and then leaned over to turn on the TV. Jace wordlessly offered me the disc, and I slipped the DVD in to the DVD player. The screen jittered for a couple seconds, and then the opening credits came up for the first episode of P&P.

I settled back into the battered cushions and took another swig of wine. Actually, it wasn't that bad, considering.

"How's work?" I asked, as a conversation starter.

"Seeing as I don't have any, it's really going quite splendidly."

I almost choked on my wine. "You… don't have a job?"

He gave me a small smile and shook his head.

"But you…. Of all people…" I was at a loss for words.

"Yeah, I know. Work was so important—or at least it was, before my company got bought by a bigger company. And now, just _nothing_. It's so weird."

"Oh." I didn't know what to say, so instead I turned back to the TV.

That's how we stayed for a while, sitting together on that cramped and ancient orange couch, until I started speaking. " 'An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.'"

I giggled a little bit as I quoted the movie. I think it was my favorite line from the whole movie. Jace laughed, too, and then turned towards me with a smile and said in a high-pitched voice, "Oh, Mr. Bennett!"

I couldn't help it. I started laughing so hard I was literally doubled over. He joined in, and we ended up clutching at each other and shaking with laughter.

I don't know what came over us. We should never have started doing it. I think it was a combination of the alcohol and the fact we were both so exhausted, but it really wasn't an excuse. I looked back on this night for years to follow and shudder at the memory.

Ok. I'll confess.

We acted out the whole movie of Pride and Prejudice. There, I said it.

It started out relatively somber, with me strutting about the room in lieu of Ms. Bingley, Mr. Bingley's dark-haired sister, and trying to convince Mr. Bingley (Jace) not to marry Jane. But then the wine bottle went empty, and I was forced to pull out another one from the depths of my cupboards. It all went downhill from there.

I played Mr. Collins and pranced about the living room singing, "Make haste! Make haste! Lady Catherine De Bourgh is coming!" while Jace perched himself on one of the leather couches and proclaimed that he was "extremely put out."

Then I played a dripping Collin Firth, except I kept my shirt on. I did try and look masculine, however, and flexed my muscles dramatically and flicked back my hair in, what I thought was, a manly fashion. Jace's lips kept twitching with suppressed laughter.

After that I played foolish Lydia, and Jace played a hysterical Mrs. Bennett. "No one knows what I suffer!" he shrieked to me (his understanding friend). "My poor nerves! I _tried_ to warn everyone about him, but _no,_ no one listens to me." He exhaled deeply. Then: "Quick! My smelly bags! I need my smelling salts! I feel faint."

Shaking with laughter, I handed him his coffee cup. He took a deep swig of wine, and then handed it back to me.

"Much better, darling. Thank you."

We acted the night away, getting progressively more drunk as the time went by. I can assure you that, under normal, sober circumstances, you couldn't have payed Jace to play Mrs. Bennett. However, we were drunk, both with laughter and wine, and completely irrational.

Five whole hours of Jane Austen and BBC induced silliness later, we were at the end of the movie. I was playing Mr. Darcy, while Jace was playing Elizabeth. Then Mr. Darcy (me) proposed to Elizabeth (Jace) and they started kissing. I watched them on the screen for a second, and then turned towards Jace to assure him that we didn't have to do that.

Before I could open my mouth, however, Jace's soft mouth swooped down to capture mine. At first, I was stunned. Then I relaxed a little bit and lifted my arms over his head. I had forgotten how nice this was. So soft, so sweet. I felt like I was going to melt.

We started backing up slowly, until Jace abruptly fell over, dragging me with him.

I gasped in pain. "What was that?"

"That," huffed Jace, "would be your _dammed_ coffee table."

I started laughing again, and rolled over so I was lying next to him.

We started chatting again, cussing out anything and everyone. Dictators. Martha Stuart. Robespierre. Starbucks. Health care. Airplane food. Miley Cyrus. George Bush. King Henry VIII. The list went on and on.

Then we started kissing again, and I think I fell asleep when the first rays of light poked their way through my mangled blinds.

I woke up when Ms. Franks from next door came in to drop off the newspaper. She gave a little shriek when she discovered me in the arms of a strange man, surrounded by several empty bottles of cheap red wine and a copy of _Pride and Prejudice_.

Her eyes wide, she dropped the newspaper next to the overturned coffee table and left in a hurry. Well, we _did_ have clothes on.

Jace woke up soon afterwards. "Does this mean we're back together?" he asked sleepily.

"I don't know. Do you still have a job?" I returned. The reason we had broken up before was his work. He had always been work, work, work.

"No. I think there are more important things right now."

"I see," I said, and leaned in for a kiss.

He hesitated. "And one more thing. I'll go out with you on one condition: you get rid of that infernal coffee table."

"I think I can manage that," I said, and smiled against his mouth.


End file.
